WA 4th District candidate Sessler denounces Jan. 6 hearing. ‘I was there’

Jerrod Sessler, a candidate for the congressional seat now held by Rep. Dan Newhouse, is calling the Congressional Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2020, attack on the Capitol an exercise in propaganda.

He knows what happened because he was in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 and at former President Trump’s rally, he says.

A video screenshot circulating on social media shows him standing in front of the Capitol after crowds had swarmed the building’s steps.

He has said he did not go inside the Capitol.

In a campaign video, Sessler has called what happened on Jan. 6 “the absolute most beautiful heist in world history,” with the left setting up the breach of the Capitol to guarantee that Trump would never be eligible to be president again.

“J6 was a setup,” he posted again on social media this month.

“This is what really happened on J6,” he said in a June 12 post to his Twitter social media account. “I was there. The police incited the the violence they wanted. I watched them do it.”

He tweeted that he was shocked that police “were throwing small bombs and shooting rubber bullets into the crowd of peaceful elderly, children and all.”

His October 2021 campaign video also emphasized that as he watched the crowd gathering to listen to Trump on Jan. 6, he saw lots of families, babies in strollers and elderly in wheelchairs.

It prompted a satiric TikTok and Twitter video posted by MostlyMature of desperate law enforcement officers being violently attacked outside the Capitol as Sessler spoke about grandmas in wheelchairs, little children and “kind, good people.”

The compiled video ends with Sessler saying that he was given a piece of the glass that was broken on the Capitol.

There’s a break in the video and then Sessler says, “He thought to give me a piece of it. I don’t know. It just seems to me like it was so thoughtful and touching.”

Sessler: ‘Costumed agitators’

Sessler has brought up the events of Jan. 6 numerous times in his campaign, this month using his Twitter account to criticize congressional hearings as “hogwash soup on national television.”

Sessler said in his campaign video that he saw “buses with what I call costumed agitators and it was obvious they were prepared for violence and they were possibly going to incite violence.”

The video showed footage of the Oath Keepers, a far right anti-government militia group. The leader of the Oath Keepers and some members have been charged with seditious conspiracy.

He’s also accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation of organizing the Jan. 6 riot and then framing Trump supporters for treason.

He’s posted that people were at the Capitol because they were paid to be there to stir up trouble, reminding people that he knows because “I was there.”

Sessler has repeated as recently as June 7 that what happened Jan. 6 was not an insurrection.

The Congressional hearing is presenting the sort of propaganda that “misleads and enflames ignorant people,” he tweeted this month. It sows division in America as many people are not capable of or willing to think critically, he said.

Weapons, other rioter charges

The only people with weapons were police, he has posted.

However, Politico reported that as of November about six people have been charged with bringing a gun into the Capitol on Jan. 6.

In addition, rioters brought knives, axes, batons, tasers, bats, poles and even a hockey stick. Others stole police shields and used metal barricades and furniture as makeshift weapons, according to Politico.

Sessler alleges that “somebody, somewhere” told the District of Columbia police to stand down. That is despite video of officers being attacked and pulled into the ground, including DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone who was dragged into the crowd, beaten and tased.

The Department of Justice reported that at the start of this year more than 225 defendants had been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees, including more than 75 people who have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.

It said about 140 police offers were assaulted at the Capitol, including about 80 U.S. Capitol police and about 60 from the DC Metropolitan police department.

In addition about 640 defendants have been charged with entering or remaining in a restricted federal building or grounds. They include more than 75 who entered a restricted area with a weapon, more than 45 charged with destruction of government property and more than 30 have been charged with theft of a government property.

4th District candidates

Sessler is one of seven Republicans, including Newhouse, and one Democrat who have filed for the fourth Congressional District race. The district includes the Tri-Cities, covering all or parts of Benton, Franklin, Grant, Adams, Yakima, Douglas, Klickitat and Okanogan counties.

Republicans challenging Newhouse include former gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp, state Rep. Brad Klippert, Benancio Garcia III, Corey Gibson and Jacek Kobiesa. Doug White is the Democrat in the race.

Sessler has criticized Newhouse for voting to impeach Trump. Sessler has already written articles of impeachment for President Biden, he said.

He wants to claw back “all that has been lost in this great republic as a result of the feckless leadership on the Republican side.”

He did not respond to a request from the Tri-City Herald for comment.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Doug White was a republican.